Decisions and my Mother

So we have decided not to lecture the agency about the comment made by the adoptive couple's advisor about not "wanting to budge on race". I think we will take the advice of some of you who posted on my blog and some of you who emailed me privately and wait until we have a baby at home before we complain.
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Now for another complaint, one that I have been trying not to think about for a few days but felt I ought to vent about here, since it won't do any good to vent about in anywhere else. Besides, another good blogging buddy is having problems with her family too and it inspired me to spill out a bit of emotion myself.

My mom and I didn't speak for about 3 years when I was in my early twenties. We got in a fight over a few silly things and then one day I called her crying because in the process of moving from my home town to a new city I lost a giant birdcage out of the back of my truck onto the freeway. I had no money, no birdcage and my parrot in a cat crate in the front seat of my pickup. I thought I was going to get someone killed by having the birdcage in the middle of the freeway between the second and third lanes. Her reaction to my crying was not motherly to say the least, she basically said, "Call me when you can act like an adult". I didn't need that, I needed a mom and it dawned on my in that moment that she really wasn't interested in being a mom or friend. So we didn't talk for all those years. It was only because of a birthday party for my grandpa, his 80th that I was even in the same room with her. Long story short we started writing letters and emails and eventually phone calls. I told her my side of things and told her that I couldn't have a relationship with her until she apologized for a lot of things she did or didn't do. She did own up to most everything that I felt she should and I owned up to a few things myself.

My mom is the type of person that everyone likes. She's cute, funny, considerate, friendly, witty, etc. She's the one that thinks of clever gifts and writes notes to people or sends birthday cards to people who don't expect them. She looks young for her age but doesn't seem fake in her appearance. Overall I would say she's one of the popular kids in school. The problem is, I don't think I'm in the right click for her. She loves me because I'm her child (her only child) and I think she likes me as a person but I don't think she likes anyone more than she likes what people can do for her. You see I'm not in her world so she doesn't really need me. As an example, when I was doing photography work for a magazine she wrote for, I was her buddy. She called a lot and bragged on me a lot to her friends and was proud to show off the magazine to everyone and announced that her daughter shot the cover and the feature story. But that quickly turned and she began taking more photos, buying more camera equipment and basically became a journalist and a photographer. It was very shortly after that, that the magazine didn't need me. You would think that she would encourage the magazine to hire me so that she and I could travel together on stories, but nope, not my mom.

Instead of further boring anyone who could stomach reading this far with details that are boring to even me, I guess I'll just get to the root of the problem this time. Last week I called to tell her that I was going to take a trip with Alex for his job to a town about an hour from her home. It was a one day trip and we would be in this city for about 4 hours. We currently live about 4 1/2 hours away from each other. I asked if she wanted to come down and we could go to lunch or go shopping or something. She said that it sounded wonderful and was so excited about that. The night before we were to leave she sent an email about how she had so much to do for her deadlines, etc., etc. Sure enough I called her when we were about an hour from our destination to ask what time she would be meeting up with me and she said she just had so much to do and she didn't sleep well the night before so she just thought she ought to pass this time.

I didn't let her hear any disappointment from me, I just said I was sorry to hear that and that I understood she was busy, "maybe next time".

I was surpised at how upset it made me that she flaked on me again. I was surpised I was crying and I was surprised that I was surprised. She'll never get it, she'll never understand what she has done to our relationship. My relationship with my mom is more damaged now than it has been in a lot of years. You see, I thought she would have learned by now how valuable our relationship should be, instead I learned how much she values it, and that's the thing, she doesn't value it, she takes it for granted even after she had the experience of loosing it for 3 years.

I guess I do owe her a thank you though, because of her I've learned that I'll never take for granted the relationship between myself and my child.